1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication terminal apparatus, a communication method, and an information recording medium for selecting either a voice phone or a videophone for having telephone communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Videophone apparatuses that can enable telephone communication by sending and receiving voices and also video (face images, etc.) have become popular. For example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2004-221738 discloses a communication terminal apparatus which enables the user to switch the communication method from videophoning to voice phoning and vice versa at an arbitrary time. According to this, the communication terminal apparatus can save the power to be consumed, by placing restraint on the use of the videophone that requires more power. Further, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2001-309086 discloses a communication terminal apparatus which allows the user to pre-register attributes of whether to answer a call by the videophone or not regarding each person registered in the address book, and when a call from a videophone is received, determines whether to answer the call by the videophone according to the attribute of the calling person. According to this, the communication terminal apparatus can automatically determine the communication method when a call is received.
Incidentally, if the telephone of the person to call is not a videophone-compatible model, one would fail in connecting to this person by making a call to this person by a videophone, and would have to make another call to this person by a voice phone after once hanging up the videophone. Thus, the user has to waste a call by the videophone. As obvious from this, according to the conventional art, the user has to remember by him/herself whether the telephone of the person to call is a videophone-compatible one or not, when making a phone call to this person. Further, the user has to select the communication method in consideration of whether the person to call is someone to whom the user allows him/herself to send his/her images, when making a phone call to this person. Furthermore, when wanting to reject a video call from someone, the user has to go through all the trouble of checking who is calling and determining whether to answer the call by the videophone or not before picking up the phone.